Recent Press Releases

Columbus, OH—In honor of Sherri Geldin’s 20th anniversary as director of the Wexner Center for the Arts, Wexner Center Foundation Chair Leslie H. Wexner and Ohio State Interim President and Vice-Chair of the Wexner Center Foundation Joseph A. Alutto have announced the creation of the Sherri Geldin Innovation Fund. The endowed fund will provide financial resources to pursue special research projects and unique initiatives above and beyond the center’s annual budget and its already robust array of programming. To date, nearly $600,000 has been raised by Wexner Center Foundation trustees alone, with more fundraising yet to occur. C. Robert Kidder, director of Morgan Stanley and of Merck & Co., Inc., supplied the lead gift, while Abigail Wexner spearheaded establishing the fund with fellow Wexner Center Foundation trustees.

Tickets for the Next@Wex Fest are $30.50 in advance for all audiences or $33 day of show. Price includes $1 per ticket to benefit Children of the Blue Sky.

Tickets go on sale to Neutral Milk Hotel fan club members Wednesday, February 5 at 10 am via Crowdsurge. Wexner Center members can buy presale tickets on Thursday, February 6 at 10 am using a Ticketmaster code. Public ticket sales begin at noon on Friday, February 7 at Ticketmaster outlets or online at Ticketmaster.com.

Columbus, OH—Film- and video-makers: we want you! The Wexner Center is now accepting submissions for the Ohio Shorts 2014 juried short film and video showcase, for both the Adult and Youth divisions. Entries for this event will be accepted through Friday, March 14 at 5 pm. Selected entries for the Youth Division will be screened Monday, April 7, beginning with a party at 6 pm in the Heirloom café, with the screening following in the center’s Film/Video Theater. The Adult Division screening will be on Saturday, April 26 at 7 pm in the Film/Video Theater, with a reception in the café space afterward.

Via Brasil is the Wexner Center's interdisciplinary, multiyear initiative focusing on the vibrant culture of Brazil, made possible by a $782,000 grant awarded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The Wexner Center has developed an integrated array of programs spanning its exhibition, film/video, and education departments, along with complementary programming from our performing arts department, to advance understanding and appreciation of contemporary art in Brazil.

Cruzamentos: Contemporary Brazilian Documentary, a presentation of more than 30 contemporary documentaries rarely screened outside of Brazil, will screen January through April, 2014 at the Wexner Center. Organized by Chris Stults, associate curator for film/video at the center, this is the largest series of Brazilian documentaries ever presented in North America and includes 24 feature films and 15 short films, dating from 1974 to the present, as well as several visiting filmmaker appearances.

February 1–April 20, 2014, the Wexner Center for the Arts will present the major exhibition Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil, among the most ambitious exhibitions in the center’s 25-year history. Cruzamentos is the result of more than three years of curatorial research and travel by Wexner Center staff, features 80 artworks by 35 artists (many of whom have never widely exhibited in the US), working across virtually all genres and a full range of artistic practices. Cruzamentos represents the largest exhibition of contemporary Brazilian art ever to be presented in North America and stems from a generous grant to the Wexner Center from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

As it readies for the culmination of Via Brasil, a multiyear initiative exploring the art and culture of Brazil, the Wexner Center has launched a new companion website, wexarts.org/viabrasil. This dynamic and complex site serves as a resource regarding the center’s formal in-depth inquiry into contemporary art in Brazil and provides context for the rise of the country’s vibrant visual arts culture.

Columbus, OH—The next two months will see the Wex present a nearly complete retrospective of work by famed director Pier Paolo Pasolini, with many titles screening in newly restored 35mm prints.

Best known in the US as one of the great Italian postwar filmmakers, Pasolini was also an influential, outspoken, and openly gay poet, novelist, critic, journalist, playwright, and painter who held seemingly conflicting philosophies as both a Marxist and a Catholic, and was a staunch leftist who once spoke out against left-wing student protests in favor of the working-class police.

The upcoming season at the Wex will see the culmination of Via Brasil—the four-year initiative focusing on the vibrant culture of Brazil—in a major exhibition, Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil; an expansive film series, Cruzamentos: Contemporary Brazilian Documentary; education programs; and performing arts programming. Member presale began Sunday, December 1; tickets are on sale to the general public beginning on December 12.

Columbus, OH—David Norr will be senior curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts effective mid-March, 2014. Norr is currently chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. As senior curator, Norr will work closely with Wexner Center Director Sherri Geldin and the center’s exhibitions team to help shape and realize a vital and rigorous exhibitions program, collaborate on cross-disciplinary programs within the center and across the university, identify visual arts residency award recipients, and cultivate an avid audience for the center’s exhibitions and related initiatives.